Chapter 16 ━━ Hide And Seek, Bro

━━━━━━━━☆★☆━━━━━━━━

"Okay, not exactly a fortress, but it'll do, right? It's my aunt's place. She's in Florida for the winter." Kate says as she unlocks the door to her safe house and they walk in.

Clint hands over the bag of medical supplies to Kate. "Here. I need you to clean your wounds. Use this. Use soap, this and disinfect it."

"All right. I'm going back to your apartment to get that suit." Clint announces and looks at Heather, who is already making himself comfortable on the couch. "You stay here and make sure she's out of trouble. I'll be back."

Heather scowls with disapproval. "You want me to babysit her?"

"You're the one who wanted to eat Chinese with me. Now bear it."

"But she's not fucking Chinese." Heather argues, referring to Kate, who rolls her eyes at him.

"And Barney, no funny business." Clint tells his brother. It's more like a demand.

"Barney? As the purple dinosaur?" Kate teases.

"Barney is what my family calls me. You stick with Heather." Heather throws a glare at the girl. "And that dinosaur is magenta. Not purple. I watched that fucking show with my nephew. I know what I saw."

"You don't get to argue and win about my childhood absolute favourite, Barn-meister. I grew up watching that show. Barney is a purple tyrannosaurus-rex with a green tummy and green spots on his back and his tail and yellow toes." Kate argues back with her theory.

"Will you two stop that bickering?" Clint groans, fed up with the drama. "Jesus, You both are the same."

"Oh, yes, Clint, you may enter my apartment. Don't you need my keys?" Kate asks, rummaging through her bag to find her key, when Clint goes to the door.

"Nope. I'm good." Clint says before closing the door.

As Kate disappears into the bathroom, Heather walks into the kitchen and looks through the pantry cupboards to find an iconic snack container sitting in it, waiting for him. He grabs one and opens the lid, taking a handful amount of Pringles to his hand and shoving them into his mouth.

He sighs in delight when the potato crisp snack dissolves in, filling his tastebuds with it's delicious taste.

When he's done, he stumbles back to the couch which is nearest to the television. He turns it on with the remote, staring at the screen.

Few minutes later, the one-eyed dog jumps on the spot next to him, placing it's head on his lap, whining for his attention.

Heather chuckles at the dog and pet its head. "You're a good dog."

"Sitting that close to the tv is bad for your health." Says, Kate walking into the room with her new clothes.

"Talking to me while I'm watching tv is bad for your health, Katy Perry." Heather replies and darts his blue eyes to her. "How's your wound?"

"Uh, all right. It still hurts a little bit." She replies.

"Lemme check." Heather gets on his feet and moves to her. Now standing in front of her, he observes the poorly treated wound on her forehead. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

"Did you clean it?"

"Yeah."

"You did it all wrong." He states, tilting her head to the side to get a better look. "Let me fix it. Okay?"

"You're taking it off?"

"Yeah. It's on wrong. And I'm just gonna rip it off like a Band-Aid. Okay? Ready. One." He picks up the edge of the plaster and rips it off, earning a yelp from the girl. "All right. Just gonna clean it up. You don't want this infected, it'll ruin your week."

Heather brings the first aid kit and begins to clean her wound with rubbing alcohol, which Kate winces as it makes contact with her injury. Then he bandages her wound. "It's a deep scratch. Want these perpendicular to it, you wanna close it. This is helping it cinch. So it can mend to each other faster."

"You fought all of them without a single scratch. How's that possible?" Kate asks, examining his reaction to her question, which he gives a lazy smile.

"I'm a trained supersoldier."

"You're what?"

"I'm stronger, more immune, and faster, enhanced stamina, reflexes than a regular human. I can see better, hear better..." He bends to her level and murmurs. "And I heard what you said about me back at the apartment."

Kate chuckles nervously. "That's embarrassing."

Heather shrugs and takes a seat on the chair next to her. "Darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream."

"And he's got an ego double the size of Texas." Kate mumbles to herself, gaining a laugh from the former Destroyer. She slaps a piece of paper and pushes it to his side.

Heather however is bored out of his mind, he is swinging on two legs of his chair, whilst his legs are perched up on the table. He eyes at the paper before picking it up. "What is this?"

"Oh, I started to describe, um, what I could remember of the Tracksuits' faces."

Heather looks into the paper. It looks like an art of a kindergarten kid. An amused smile cracks on his face. "I guess you're not an art major."

Kate huffs and opens the refrigerator and takes out a packet of frozen pizza before placing it over her wound.

With a raised eyebrow, he asks. "What are you doing?"

"Multitasking."

"Hmm."

"Reducing swelling. Thawing out Pizza Dog's food."

He chuckles. "Is that the dog's name?"

"He doesn't have a name." Kate explains, taking her seat back. "It's more of a title of nobility. Like Earl of Sandwich."

Heather opens his mouth to shoot back a sarcastic response, only to get cut off by Kate's buzzing phone.

Kate immediately answers it and it turns out to be her mother, Eleanor Bishop.

Heather wonders what it is to be having parents around. All he knows is his parents are long gone.

Heather is pulled out of his thought bubble when a voice fills in the air.

"When did everybody start saying, 'I love you,' to everybody all the time?"

Heather finds Clint walking in, just as Kate hangs up on her call.

"That was my mom. Since when did your heart shrink three sizes?" Kate inquires.

"When a little girl in a ninja costume stole my Christmas." Clint retorts and glances at his brother, who is surprisingly quiet.

Kate clears her throat before bombarding him with her questions. "So, how's my place?"

"Crispy."

"Did you get the suit?"

"No."

"Um, I would offer to buy you a hotel, uh, 'cause from certain angles, I know this all looks like my fault. Um, but my mom cancelled my credit cards due to the whole clock tower." Kate says.

"That's not necessary." Clint replies.

"Whole clock tower? What am I missing?" Heather asks, looking between the two.

"A dare went wrong with my pretty bad luck and I managed to destroy the million-dollar bell tower on my college campus." Kate explains her situation briefly.

Heather chuckles, knowing what he's about to say will provoke her to the edge. But he's quite enjoying annoying her. "So you ended up destroying a clock tower just because you couldn't turn down a dare?"

"Is that judgement I'm hearing?" Kate asks challengingly, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes glaring straight to the younger Barton brother.

"Is that pride I'm hearing?" Heather asks back with an equal attitude.

"Alright. That's enough." Clint says, patting on Heather's back before he turns to look at the girl. "We'll be back in the morning, kid. Stay here. Lock this door."

"Thank you for everything. I'll, um, see you guys tomorrow, I guess."

"No worries." Heather winks before following after his brother out of the apartment. As they make their way to the street, he awakes his voice. "Got any leads?"

"Yeah? It won't be that hard." Clint replies unsure of his own reply. "We'll go there tomorrow after We send the kids home."

"Okay." Heather nods, hoping tomorrow won't be that hard to them.

Next day's morning schedule is quite a busy one for Heather. He helps the kids to pack their bags and get Nathaniel ready for the flight.

"Okay. Cooper, off your phone." Clint says, gaining the attention of his kids. "Okay, guys. Once you get to the airport from the car, Cooper's in charge."

"No donuts, buddy." Clint tells his five year old son. Nathaniel looks back at Heather and smiles mischievously. Heather bought him a donut just after they took breakfast and made the little kid promise not to spill a word about it.

"What? Why's he in charge? He's an idiot." Lila grumbles.

"But I got seniority." Cooper grins.

"When you land, your mom is gonna be waiting there, okay? Most importantly, remember these words, 'Don't lose Nate.' Okay?"

"Nate, come on, buddy." Heather calls out to the little boy, who is sitting on the corner of the bed with a frown. "What's with the face?"

"You're coming back, right?" Nathaniel asks as Heather sits beside him.

"Of course, I am. Wait till I get home, we're gonna go paint the town blue. We'll have so much ice cream we'll never stop puking." Heather gags before performing a magic trick he learned from an online website and throws up the cards all over, like he's vomiting it out.

"You're getting good at that, uncle B." Lila comments, clapping with pride.

"That was awesome." Cooper adds.

Clint looks at him with a disgusted face. "Why'd you do that?"

Heather shrugs. "Magic?"

Clint rolls his eyes. "I've seen far better magic than that."

"Rude." Heather mumbles under his breath with a few curses following behind and grabs two suitcases without a sweat and heads downstairs to the rented car waiting for the kids.

"Everyone get in." Clint demands the kids as both he and Heather say their goodbyes to them. Nathaniel is the first to get in and Cooper follows after him.

Lila goes for the car door only to stop and look back. "Is this about the ninja? What's going on? Should we be worried?"

Clint shakes his head with a smile. "No, no. It's nothing. It's no big deal. Okay?"

"I really thought you were gonna be home for Christmas." Lila says.

"Hey, look at me. I'll be home for Christmas with this idiot." Clint assures his daughter.

"You heard the old man. We got this." Heather adds, even though neither of them isn't very sure of how long it'll take.

"Promise me. Promise?"

"Yeah, okay."

"I said Coop's in charge, he's not. You're in charge. You always have been. Look after these boys." Clint says to her.

"Merry Christmas. See you soon."

"Keep your word, okay?"

"I will. I promise."

"You guys be safe, okay?"

"Okay."

"Call me when you get home? I love you."

"Bye, Dad, Uncle B!" Nathaniel yells, waving at the Barton brothers.

"Bye, Dad. Don't worry. I got this." Cooper says.

"Cooper, you do not got this." Lila grumbles at him.

"Love you both!" Nathaniel squeaks once again before the car moves into action and speeds away.